Sons of inventors, Through Day 6
by happyguyofwhite
Summary: Borko and Amare find themselves guiding a group through the Wall Maria recovery plan. As they progress day by day they write the events that happen in their casualty journals. They slowly start to realize the monarch's intentions in sending them on this suicide mission and they claim a new purpose for themselves. Can they realize their hopes against all forms of adversity?


After the dust from the attacks on wall Maria settled, after all the refugees calmed down and after the total missing from the previous titan attacks were accounted for, humanity saw that it did not have enough space to provide the needed resources for the new inhabitants of Wall Rose. It was no more than a year before a massive reclamation effort of Wall Maria was put together. The government collected a coagulation of soldiers to guide hundreds of thousands of people to their inevitable doom.

I am Amare Mugabe; I am one of the few pureblood "Africans", as they used to say, left in the human race. My dad was in the engineering corps. He told me about when he met my mom, and how they were treated differently because their co-workers weren't familiar with how they looked. That didn't stop them from inquiring about physics, engineering, but what they really wanted to know was how to take humanity to the sky. They would play with cloth and canvas around my house. They would tie a few knots and try to get it to float for as long as possible. From their household observations they were able to hypothesize that; "In order for a cloth like object to stat afloat in the air, it must have a constant movement of air inside of itself going upward." It was from this hypothesis they started to devote their lives towards humanity owning the skies.

One day I came home and they made an extremely small motor run by CO2 from the 3DM gear attached to a cloth that they seemed to have sewn into an orb. They got the engine to push air upward into the cloth fast enough to where it would float for about 4 minutes before running out of gas. I joined them in their research. After six months of expounding on that initial project, we were finally able to run their first model that could carry small fruit. A month after, that the orb was able to carry melons with ease for hours at a time. They knew it was time to do start with human transportation orbs.

It was April 6, 845, my birthday, when we made the first human transportation orb. We had it ready to launch. We put all of my parent's journals and books in it, along with a 145-pound weight to simulate a human. We were getting ready for launch when we heard some voices in the distance screaming telling us to stop. My parents took out the dummy and loaded me into the orb. They untethered the balloon and with me in it, it took off. I turned 16 the day that my parents were shot by the Garrison regiment as I watched ascending into the air on the orb. I later read a letter from my parents telling me they knew they were going to die and that I needed to join the scouts and introduce the balloon to them. Later on that year wall Maria fell and I was drafted a year later for the Wall Maria recovery effort.

_Day 1: 7,000 Refuges, 300 servicemen_

When my group of refugees set out from Neplay, the northern most district of Wall Rose, we were met almost immediately with a massive amount grouping of titans. Luckily for the soldiers they were mostly 3M titans and were therefore easier to kill. The ODM gear they had given us, however, seemed to be unreliable. It was at that moment in time I got my first kill of the titan. His face was disgusting. His eyes were devoid of emotion; his teeth had the bones of children with his nose stained with the blood of the people he had just eaten. I shot my hooks at the side of his neck and with the momentum carrying me I placed my blades down so far into the back of his neck and just like that, his scorching body fell to the fields as if all of his will to continue his feast on the innocent bodies of the refugees had been decimated and he just continued to steam lifeless. It was at that moment I killed the first thing I had ever killed, it was at that moment the hatred and anger rose in me as a fire in a dry forest. All the conditions were right to catch flames; a simple spark of blood lust was needed to diffuse all throughout the beautiful forest that was my humanity towards the titans. They were to now die. All of them needed to die.

I woke up with a close friend of mine's face in abject shock and fear. I asked Borko, "What the fuck just happened?"

He explained, "You killed them all, all of the titans died at your hands. You saved us all."

Borko and I continued to walk around camp. He told me that he had never seen anything so disastrously eloquent as my killing of the titans; he was scared for the refugees they were to guide from the seemingly animalistic rage that I had shown. I asked him about the casualty count and he said that of the 300 soldiers that were there to help the refugees only 50 survived the onslaught. The villagers' casualty count was astronomically higher than that of the scouts. Of the 7,000 we were to guide only 1,203 survived and of that 602 will most likely die of injuries by the morning.

(Borko's POV during Amare's rage)

It was terrible, my group and I tried our best to guide the villagers to relative safety but it was no use, we tried to fight but it was futile, we tried to use ourselves as bait but it was an abject failure. I saw them, eating my fellow soldiers, children, childhood friends, and almost myself. Out of the blue, however the titan that had me in his mouth, fell over dead. I pried my way out of his carcass stenched jaws to see who was my savior; it was no more than Amare. I saw him going around the feasting beast, then one after the other they started to drop. One slice of the nape after the other, handful after handful of refugees saved by him, but how could this be? Amare was part of the Survey Corps engineering firm. He had never seen any non-artificial combat in his life. I guided the villagers to relative safety and started to tend to the wounded. When Amare was done he did something that no one though possible. Amare, the humble engineer, killed off 13 3-12M titans by himself, when he got done with the slaughter of the butchers of humanity, he stood up as if he were intoxicated. He swayed side to side for approximately 30 seconds and passed out. He had not a scratch on him. The remaining soldiers and I swept his body up and took him to the camp.

_Authors explanation: The camps the refugees were in were cocoon esque tree sleeping bags. They dangled from the branches high in the trees. While titans are mostly diurnal, it doesn't hurt to be cautious when you can. If you don't hang over 15M however, you could be a sitting duck for a night loving abnormal to chomp on. _

_These explanations of the equipment that the refuges were handed will come as they did in both the manga and the show. _

(I do not have illustrations and depending on the success of this piece of writing, probably will not. The more you share the more likely pictures will come though.)

(Back to Amare and Borko on guard duty)

"So I killed all of them Borko?" I asked trembling.

"Yes Amare, I have never seen anything like it. It was as a well-rehearsed dancer. Almost to the finest detail of 3DM gear technique, it was perfect. The rest of the villagers and soldiers scurried away into the forest in fear. The way you bounced off of one dead titan to the next was beautiful. It seems like you had no fear in this either. You just killed them one to another. You did what humanity has failed to do for over a century, you turned your fear into rage. Enough so to where you killed 12 of them all by yourself, Amare, you saved me while I was in the mouth of one of the putrid beast. I was slowly making my way to the hot pool that was the fat little cunt's stomach." He holds back tears after saying this, he then inquires, "Why the fuck am I so weak Amare?"

"You're not Borko, you're human." I said trying to reassure my friend. At this point it was our turn to go to sleep and swap out with the next two guards who were supposed to be on duty.

_End of Day 1: 50 Servicemen, 1,203 Refuges. 90% death rate._

_Day 2: BY 8AM- 608 refuges 50 servicemen._

Borko and I woke up to count those who didn't make it through he night. Of the 602 who were severely injured, over 595 of them died in their sleep. This left 698 refuges out of the 7,000 we were assigned to protect. All 11 of the injured soldiers died in their sleep also. We started out with 300 soldiers; only 13% remained after one day. The worst part about this isn't the casualties, it's that we could still see Neplay in the distance. We may have traveled 6 miles that day. Over 90% of the people that had come on this mission with us were dead, for 6 miles of reclaimed Maria country. These numbers were these villagers' mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends so on so forth. It wouldn't surprise me if suicide became this days biggest killer.

The remaining soldiers held a conference with the remaining refuges as to how we were to survive much longer, or until we could get to the northernmost district of Maria. There we would find an almost untouched village that we could settle at. The plan was that instead of sleeping at night we should start sleeping during the day so we can avoid as many titans as possible. It sounded reasonable, I was just concerned how much light we could use to fed off the one or two titans we were inevitably going to run into. For this plan to work we needed some form of light. If we were to have a chance at survival in any form of modest numbers in any fashion that resembled unified and of high moral we needed light to take down the titans.

However, light seemed to be the least of our problems. What we as soldiers forgot was that a lot of these people lost their entire families. The mood of the refuges was low, they almost seemed like they had lost their will to contribute to the plan of survival, or just the will to survive in general. Who can blame them really? They have seen shit that no one should have to see. The faces of children changed from excited to return home to what would be expected from a child seen an unfathomable amount of bloodshed, of which, some was probably their close family. Taking that into account, what we need to realize is that these people need to have their losses justified.

As the sun started to set and the moon started to rise we looked at it to find that it was a waning crescent. This meant that we would only have a barley acceptable amount of light for a very short amount of time. We set out on our trail, in the semi-illuminated night. Borko looked over at me and said, "Do you think this was a ploy by the government to save resources?"

I calmly turned around, looked him in the darkened night eyes and slapped him with the back of my hand and exclaimed, "Do you know what saying that type of shit will do to us!? Listen, I know now that the government is using us to herd these refuges to their slaughter, but we cannot, I repeat, cannot let that happen!"

Borko calmly agreed. As we ended our confrontation we heard the last thing we wanted to hear. We heard the fast beating drum of a titan's footsteps quickly approaching us. OF the 39 Survey corps members left, 10 of us went to fight the titan; the rest guided the refuges to safety. Leading those was one of my most hated colleagues and racist little fucker Beatrix Ackerman. But I digress, at this point Borko, 8 other men and women, and me had to kill this titan, so that the refuges could get to the next forest before morning.

As we saw the titan come over the horizon, we saw her brown hair first, as she came and stood atop of the hill we found that we had three trees to work with. We broke up in five group of two. Borko and I went for the eyes so we could temporarily shut off her senses. As we were coming in we noticed that this giant of a titan had eight people in her hands. Borko in a stupid act of bravery went for her hands to free them. A-last it was too late. She had decapitated eight of our fellow soldiers. This left Borko staring right into the female titans mouth dangling from her right nostril.

Forgetting what I was supposed to be doing I put both of my blades into the sockets of her eyes. I then proceeded to go to the back of her neck and slice the nape, when I realized that the last of my blades had been used. She grabbed me from the back of her neck and proceeded to put me closer to her mouth. Then I got this overwhelming feeling of helplessness that I had yet to feel as a result I screamed, "BORKO YOU GODDAMN BITCH, DO SOMETHING, YOU CAN'T LET ME DIE LIKE THIS. WE GREW IN THE SAME FUCKING ORPHANAGE TOGETHER."

I always looked for light. I loathed the dark. It scared me honestly. I grew up afraid of the titans, especially in the darkness of night. It wasn't secure and my family sought to change that. I lived in Shiganshina for most of my life. My dad and younger brother passed when I was 13 from a plague that had stricken the district. The few doctors we had, especially Doctor Jaeger, worked to counteract it. After the plague settled and my mom and I being the only ones left in our house, we looked for security financially. She was a smart lady. Worked with the Garrison's illumination engineering corps on trying to light Shiganshina at night just in case of titan invasion. She claimed that the reason she left was because she got pregnant with me and my dad made more money as a broker, but after seeing her labor for hours at a time on a design, I knew at the age of 15 that she got kicked out for designing something that was way past our time.

One day I asked my mom what she was working on, she only would say that it would be something to make us 'secure'. After she went to bed that night, I snuck in her office and looked through her journals and specs n what she was working on. She had two major things that she wanted to diffuse to light up the walls. She had a steamed powered motor and a round globe that seemed to light up when connected to the engine. In her office is where I spent the rest of my night.

I was awoken by my mom on her desk with her screaming, "Why are you in here, didn't you read the sign Borko!? It told you stay out of here!"

Slightly distraught I answered, "Do you have any test models?"

My mother spitefully pulled my ear and we went down to our locked basement. She showed me a small motor that had been hooked to one of the globes that I saw in her journals. When she poured water into it the globe lit up, and stayed lit. It was beautiful. The light never flickered a bit. My mom had invented something that would change the world. This was what she was working on for two whole years. She then proceeded to show me another one of her pieces of work. She showed me a globe inside of a contraption with a handle. She turned off all of the lights in the basement and turned the handle in a circular motion. The globe began to glow. After her first showcase of what she had invented, she and I worked on the lights as mother and son.

One day I came home from the store to buy a replacement handle for our mobile light. I found blood all over the kitchen and saw a note from The Garrison saying, "You're next."

After I saw this I ran down to the cellar and got as much as I possibly could for the light globes. My mom had written specific instructions as to go about creating the globe. After I got all of what I needed I grabbed whatever food I could and ran as fast as I could. When I was nearing the interior of Shigonshina, I heard a crash and people screaming. I turned around and saw a titan that's head seemed to tower above our wall. In three minutes the door to the interior of Wall Maria was opened and I ran in as fast as I could. I will never forget that day sunny day in 845; it was the day humanity lost its sense of security.

I snuck onto one of the last refugee boats and went to the interior of wall rose where I joined the military, not knowing where to go, and was assigned to the Survey Corps to go on the Wall Maria recovery mission. During this year I grew a lot with a fellow orphan at the hands of the Garrison Amare Mugabe. Together we promised that we would leave the orphanage behind and use our knowledge that we gained from our parents to give ultimate security to the titans.

Amare and I went to training together as we were assigned by the draft to do. We were scared but excited for our mission to reclaim Wall Maria. We knew that we would save humanity. When we graduated we were almost immediately whisked away into the survey corps, along with on of 20 groups of 300 to guide one of 20 groups of 7,000 refuges. We were going to reclaim Maria and we were going to make humanity stronger than ever.

As I dangled in front of the titan's nose I saw she was going to eat Amare, and out of nowhere time slowed down. I climbed my way to the titan's eyes, took the blades that were inside of the titans eyes clipped them to my handles, grappled onto its forehead, hung suspended for a few seconds, shot my hooks at the nape, and killed the titan. She let out a massive crash and as I swung back to see if Amare was not hurt, he gave me a look of abject horror. He was inside of the mouth of the titan. He began to sob uncontrollably. I didn't have words at this point so I took him back to our group who was only half a mile a head of us at this point. At the end of our travels for the night, we found ourselves at a forest. We began to set up camp for the daytime.

_Day Three: Over night the group had 12 refugee suicides, the rest of the 8 refugees who were injured died from their wounds, 3 refuges were eaten by titans in their sleep, and over all we had 585 remaining refuges. We had 1 serviceman who was eaten by a titan in her sleep, and the 8 that died in the abnormal attack. We had only 30 servicemen/women left. It appeared that traveling at night yielded far less casualties than traveling during the day._

As Borko and Amare were counting the dead from the day-time, Borko asked, "Amare, the question I asked you the other day, about the government trying to throw away massive amounts of resources. Do you think it is true?"

"Borko, do you see the bodies we are having to count? Do you see the shit that we have had to go through?" Amare asked.

Borko responded, "I understand this, but as we count these bodies we are running low on the little food rations we got, a lot of the equipment that the government gave us is breaking as we speak, and I also heard the Garrison close the gates as we were leaving and lock the."

Amare looks at Borko, looks down at the body of a child who had released the sleeping bags' hitch and crashed down from the tree. Amare replied, "Does it matter what purpose we are assigned? If we are meant to be slaughtered off by the Titans under the crowns command then they clearly have no need for us to follow orders, right? So why don't we make our own assignments? Why don't we look to the purpose of our parents and try to use what we have to make this almost impossible mission to help humanity a success? We have children committing suicide because their parents died. We have our classmates dying off in masses, why don't we make a purpose for ourselves on this mission Borko? Is that too damn crazy of a thought? At this point, these people have nothing but the small glimmer of hope that they will be able to make it to our destination and that they will be able to save humanity. Why don't we do all that we can to make that glimmer of hope, that their loved ones deaths will not be in vain, a reality? What happened to trying to further humanity?"

"Amare, I'm sorry. Did you bring your possessions needed to create the orb your family?" Borko asked, "Our parent's inventions may be the only hop we have on this trail."

Amare responded, "I have mine." He then proceeded to empty out his personal belongings bag our of the handcart. All that was in it was a massive piece of thick canvas rolled as tightly as possible, a de-barking knife for making whicker, and a small gas engine.

Borko went to his personal bag and showed Amare the light up globe and preceded to crank it. He also had spare parts for his globe. In the dark Amare and Borko, as the others were resting in the trees, began to build.

When the sun rose the rest of the servicemen and refugees woke up to start the re-grouping and planning day, they saw the human transportation orb, in the air, with Borko and Amare floating in it. Both serviceman and refugee alike had faces of both terror and awe. "Does anyone want onto the machine that start humanity's subjugation of the skies!? Does anyone want to be part of the effort that will drive humanity's victory over the titans!?" Amare and Borko exclaimed in not so great unison.

Amare got off the orb and walked to the commander of the servicemen, Commander Adolph. "My plan is this, for us to fly our balloon over to the destination with children and farmers in first. As you make your nighttime journeys Borko will guide you with the Luminescent Globe he made and I will pick people up in groups of 6. Borko and I snuck out and went to our destination in about four hours. It wasn't very heavily populated and it has a lot of free space to make a garden etc. For a while the farmers we take will live off of some left-over food in the city and their rations. Then as you get closer and closer, the garden will get bigger and bigger until it will be able to sustain the population we have now."

Borko then added on, "I would like to guide the night group with a few lights I put together last night. They are strong lights that are able to better guide us during the night. When Amare comes back with the Balloon, we will quickly load people onto it around twice a night. We will continue this pattern until all but you, some servicemen and I are left. When this happens we will wait until Amare comes back once more to retrieve us."

"Why don't we stay where we are at? Wouldn't that cut the risk of us all dying tremendously?" Commander Adolf asked.

Amare responds, "That makes sense, but we need to be conservative with the fuel we have until we can reach a place where we can get more condensed gas to keep the orb a float. To do this, the group must make as much forward progress as possible. Borko and I stayed up all night trying to figure out a way we could have the group remain stationery, and unless you want to give up all of your ODM gas, I suggest you comply. I firmly believe this plan of implementing the technology our families died to progress, I believe that we can make it with decent numbers and most of us that remain alive."

The commander looks to his shoe and kicks some bark off, he hears cries of pleading from the refugees, who were conversing and spreading rumors about a possible escape. He looked at the hopeful eyes of both Borko and Amare and simply said, "No."

After about one minute the refuges stopped talking, this very crucial point in the journey was overwhelmed with uneasy quiet. The refuges roar of disapproval slowly increased, as they were standing on top of their branches from their trees that had become a home to them, the screamed cries of disapproval. Some told Borko and I to kill the commander. We sure as hell wanted to, and we almost did. If we were to however, would we be sacrificing the most important aspect to this mission success? If we killed Commander Adolph, would we sacrifice order? After an hour of yelling at the commander he finally exclaimed, "Enough! We will carry out this suicide mission. If you want to deviate from the set plan created by his majesty himself then do it. I renounce my command and strip myself of my gear. Amare, it's your legion now."

Amare saluted and so did the rest of the servicemen. Commander Adolph looked Amare in the face as he was tying a cord around his neck and said, "No man who looks like you will ever be able to lead these people to success."

Commander Adolph was the 13th suicide we had in the last 24 hours. He didn't kill himself out of sadness or fear, he lost his life from the thing that will kill all of humanity before any beast, the inability to move forward in thought. As the night of regrouping came to a close, we had one day to sleep and then it was time to enact operation _Skyward. _

_Day Four: As yesterday was spent high in the trees where the titans could not reach us and we did not do any walking, no battle related casualties are reported. However, one number that is a positive is that outside of Commander Adolph's non trauma related suicide, we had no others. Also the refugees seem to be a little more hopeful. The ones whom are orphans found families that had lost children, the refuges are communicating more, and though the atmosphere is overall a sad one, but I feel like the moral of the refuges is improving. Tonight is when we start operation skyward. _

As Borko and Amare were preparing for the first run of skyward, Borko looked at Amare and said "You know if we screw up once the entire group is probably going to die at their own will, we are their last hope at survival."

"Yes, I know, but we have to do something other than what we are doing or we will all be slaughtered off as the Monarchy suggest." Amare responded.

The dialogue stopped after a small girl came up to Amare and gave him a bracelet made of flowers she had picked a few nights ago. She said, "I know you don't know who I am, but I really hope this bracelet will give you victory tonight on your way to our destination."

"What's your name little one?" asked Amare

"My name is Guul, and I am 7 years old, my parents died on the first day." She continued, "I heard your plan and was just wanting to say you have all of our support, we know that all our losses wont go in vain."

These words from this little girl came solidified the determination of the two not to fail. They knew that they had to succeed and make sure not one more refugee died at the hands of the titans or themselves. The pandemic levels of suicide seemed to lower as the plan unraveled more and more. As the Sun fell it was time to implement the plan to take the first 6 refuges to their destination.

"Borko, be safe now, you are the leader of quite possibly the only group that is left of the Wall Maria Recovery Operation. We are probably humanity's last tie to the territory outside of Rose. Guide our refugees carefully and may you be the light that guides them out of the darkness that is the daytime, may you serve them well in guiding them to the next forest." Amare said to Borko with a slight tremble in his voice.

"Why the Hell are you saying poetry at me you pussy?" Borko responded with a kidding grin on his face.

They proceeded to hug and Amare went up with the individuals that Borko and he chose to be the first to go to their destination.

As Amare went up the group that had my crank lights led the remaining 585 refuges to the destination towards the north. It seemed as if everything was going smoothly. However we were not to get comfortable because one abnormal who collected an abundance of sunlight during the day could easily throw us off. I looked to one of my servicemen and said, "Do you think that we have passed all of the titans? Have you noticed that ever since we left from Neplay we have been encountering fewer and fewer titans?"

The serviceman responded, "I mean it would make sense. That isn't an excuse to get comfortable, we need to act as if they are watching us as we speak."

Borko, looking down at his crank light and seeing it illuminate the area in front of him said, "Do you know how much of an advantage having these lights are? When we left we had barley a moon at all to go off of, but even with a new moon we are able to see in the night? Isn't that cool to you? We are no longer bound to the city's gas lamps to guide us at night. We can now move along where we want in the night."

"That's an interesting point, I have never really been much afraid of the dark." Replied the serviceman.

The group walked along for some time, then seemingly out of nowhere they heard something, it wasn't a titan's foot prints, it sounded like people. Like some possible refugees from another group. The roar came closer and closer and closer. As the approached, something in me told 20 of my men to draw their swords and be prepared to fight and the other 9 were to stay back and escort the group. This feeling was one I did not need to ignore.

As I floated away from Borko towards our destination, I had a feeling come over me of both terror and joy. I was terrified because of failure, but also joyful because for the first time since my parents' death I was able to utilize the things the built and taught me to help humanity gain some traction in the war against the titans. This whole operation boiled down to me being able to successfully navigate something I have only flown in once before.

"You can navigate this thing in the dark?" Asked one of the two farmers on the orb. "It's rather impressive, how did you know how to build this thing? It super complex."

I continued to tell him my story about my parents and how they knew they were going to be killed by the Garrison for trying to go over the walls via this orb. I also told him about my confidence, while shaky at best, in this operation and in myself to safely guide them to the destination. The thing they were most interested in, however, was what did our destination look like? I told them, "It was a relatively crowded place, but they had excellent city planning because they had a whole 6th of it set aside for farmland specifically. The buildings, while tall, were well put together and probably had three to four families a piece."

The child replied, "Mister, I've been meaning to ask you, do you think my sister will make it to the destination soon? She is the only family I have left."

Looking down at the basket, my insecurities were re-igniting and all I could do was drive this balloon to this destination and drop them off with needed supplies. The thought of failing them wasn't all I was scared of failing, I was also afraid of failing my parents and their last request written to me on my birthday almost 2 years ago. If I fail and live, I am sure that it wont be a titan that takes my life, but more or less my conscious that will kill me. What do I say to this little girl? Do I guarantee that I'll put her sister on the next trip up? That would ruin the random selection process that veils this system from personal favor. What do I say? What if I go back to the group and this little girl's sister is dead, in the mouth of a titan? Why did I do this to myself? I cannot be a leader, Adolph was right. Goddammit why can't I be strong?

As all 20 of my servicemen/women that I told to stay back prepared for who/what the hell was coming over that hill, it dawned on me, what if they are just as strong as us? The as we heard the roar coming over the hill we saw a group of people, maybe 20, that were lost from their group. It looked like they only had one or two servicewomen to guide them, when they saw us they sheathed their blades and continued to salute us, we did the same. I went up to the service woman that seemed to be in charge and asked what had happened.

"Everyone is dead in our group except for the 21 you see here. My name is Commander Zu Lieben, I was with another group headed to the northernmost district of Wall Maria. May we join your group? We have plenty of supplies we can offer you in the carts we managed to salvage. If you allow us to amalgamate with your group we could be of great service. For we have several mechanics here that can repair 3DM gear and fix other things."

"As the leader of this group I gladly accept you. We have lots of ground to cover to catch up with my group." Borko replied.

As they finished catching up to the group Borko found that their spirits were higher than he has ever seen them, Borko felt on top of the world about his leadership of these people. In his own self praise, he couldn't help but think about where Amare was. As they walked they saw their next forest in eyes sight. Borko told the rest of the refugees to give a warm welcome to the new allies they had gained and to help them catch up on how things worked within the group. As they were settling in, they saw the orb in the sky coming down with Amare looking shaken up.

I looked down at my bracelet Guul gave me. She told me and it reminded me that I am going to be victorious. That if I trusted myself and didn't doubt myself, anything was possible. I looked at the little girl and said with a tear in my face, "Not only your sister, but everyone else I can salvage. We will be successful."

As I finished saying that we were floating over our destination, I lowered the balloon and let them out. I gave them their supplies and said, "I'll be back tomorrow with one our servicewomen as protection. Go in the underground shelter over there and you should be able to sleep through the night comfortably."

With that emotionless approach I floated away to go back to the group. These next four hours were going to be excruciatingly lonely. Looking down at the bracelet I kept my head up and I drove on. I checked everything, and all the fuel levels were steady at only half-empty, nothing had broke or cracked or weathered, I didn't forget to give them anything, I was headed in the right direction, all was well. After as much failure as my group has had to suffer over the past few days, it should be nice that we have humans sowing the seeds for humanity's flourishing in the destination.

After about three hours of flying and looking down, I saw something strange, it looked like a human that was alone holding a torch. There are two things wrong with this: One, a human couldn't possibly survive alone in Wall Maria for long, even at night. There are rabid wolves competing with titans for food. Two, how does he have enough fuel for a torch? I lowered my orb to approximately 19M and yelled, "Do you need a ride!? I have a relatively well off group about an hours flight from here!"

(15 minutes pass)

It was then I saw him in specifics, he was wearing a purple hooded robe with bright, illuminating white eyes. Out of no where he started to glow, he kept getting brighter and brighter until he turned into a titan. As on the first day, something inside of me snapped. All I can remember is coming out of this trance with blood covering me, and a dead human inside the weak spot of the titan that lay steaming before me. I found a book that he must have dropped in his transformation. The book had a locked binding. Even though I had not read the insides of this book, I just knew that he wasn't alone in his endeavors in titan shifting. I looked behind me to see that the orb was tied down. I also saw that the moon was now approaching the western horizon. I knew I couldn't be far but I knew I needed to catch up to them.

I couldn't help but to think about what had just happened. Was he alone? Is this a common place thing for humans to shift into titans? Are there any titans in my group of people? I was not sure what to do about these feelings, but one thing I did know is that I had to catch up with the group.

I passed over a forest with some lights and a group of people entering it. I presumed correctly that it was my group and I made my way down to find more people than I left with. When I landed I was applauded because of the success of the journey. I went to Borko and he explained the situation about the extra refugees. I asked him to check the "supplies" they offered us just to be safe.

They went down and found nothing but replacement blades, gas for the 3DM gear, and enough food to feed 40 for three nights. Things were going too right, especially with the things I saw tonight. I needed sleep however and proceeded to go to sleep in my cocoon.

_Day Five: The first night of operation skyward was a success. We successfully transported 3 people (two farmers and one child) to our destination to begin the gardening process. Borko and his group found a group of refugees led by Commander Zu Lieben. While a beautiful woman who seemed to be nothing but helpful, something was just odd about her. Yesterday was our first day without casualties or suicides or accidents. The will of the refugees is strong. They want to make their loved one's deaths count. They did not want to be numbers involved with a failure. With the new group joining us we have 32 servicemen/women and 605 refugees. In the day I was going to take one serviceperson to the destination and a few more people. Today was a regrouping day. I trust Borko to plan the days travels well. I needed to get to know Commander Zu Lieben better though, something seems off about her._

Amare is taking his hour between waking up and preparations for the night's journey to find Zu Lieben and to try to get acquitted with her. He zipped around the forest trying to find her and when he did she was scratching her head looking at the casualty book confused.

"Hey, why so confused Zu Lieben? Is everything okay?" I asked her inquisitively.

She responded, "Yeah, it's weird to not write down any casualties. I don't even know where to check that we had none in the book."

Looking at her he said, "They didn't even bother making a place to mark that there were no casualties. It is those little things that the kingdom did before we went out that make me think that they sent us out to die. I made my own in the upper right corner of the book. I just put a zero with a dash though it. Let's not make a mountain out of a molehill though, tell me about you Zu Lieben. I'm interested"

"What would you like to know?" She asked

"Really anything. Start with your mission" Amare responded

She looked down and started to speak with a crack in her throat, "My group left out of Trost to go take Shiganshina. We had the biggest group of them all to take out the worst titans. The one's that were the biggest were waiting for us. The smallest one we saw was a 12M. After one day all but 400 of my group died and of the 400 all but 80 were fatally wounded. They died the next day. Having only 80 refugees whose morals were severely damaged, all the remaining 10 servicewomen could do was try to get them to the next forest. We realized that if we were to go on the path south that the monarch set out for us, we knew we would be doomed When we got to the closest forest we decided to move northwest away from Shiganshina.

The first night we were staying at the forest we had over 36 refugee suicides and 4 servicewomen suicides. At this point it seemed hopeless, but I was not about to die, so we moved on towards the next forest. That day we found smaller and smaller titans. The biggest was a 12M. We managed to kill him but not after suffering 12 refugee casualties and 3 servicewoman casualties.

With the only soldiers left being women you can imagine that the remaining men of the group got kind of harsh and disrespectful towards us. Of the 18 men in our group had12 left. They left what little of a family they had, they left their only form of protection, and worst of all, they took their sons. We can presume they are now dead. That is why we only have 4 men in our group and a lot of women and girls we picked up and several stragglers along the way who either lost their group, their group kicked them out because they were women who tried to change the monarch's plan because of how intentionally suicidal it was, or their group just died. As men typically are, they were too stubborn to change the plan. When we came up with our plan to travel at night we suffered much smaller casualties.

It wasn't until last night, when we saw your group; I saw this recovery plan working out at all. I was just trying to buy days for my group and me. Borko told me about your plan and it gave all of us hope to live somewhat normal lives. Last night was the first night we didn't have any casualties at all, when this happened I could feel the moral going up. With that, can I ask humbly that you take one small girl from my group to the destination tonight? She lost everything and has been in the mouth of a titan, she hasn't talked since then. She needs some hope of surviving. "

I starred at her looking down. The conflict of slightly rigging the system in order to favor one girl over the random selection we had in place. The system was meant to not favor anyone over anyone. I told her, "Let me talk to Borko."

I zipped away to find Borko before I took off for the destination.

I saw Amare come to me on 3DM gear from a distance. He had 6 minutes until he had to prepare for launch. "What the hell are you doing!? You have to go up tonight. We have 6 minutes until the drawing! You need to get ready dammit."

Amare responded, "We need to take a little girl up for sure, Zu Lieben's request. She has seen everything that a lot of our group members have seen and worst of all, she has been in the mouth of a titan. You and I both know how awful that is. Imagine a 4-year-old girl, having to go through that. It led us both to tears. Soldiers who have been beaten by racist old fucks in training camp, we have both looked over the walls and seen them clawing up, wanting to eat us all, and we have lost our family to monsters of our own race. Imagine all of that at the young age of four and we have her. Zu Lieben said she has yet to say a thing ever since the trip began."

"I'll think about it. We have child group members who have lost everything you know. Is there some favoritism going on between you and Zu Lieben?" I responded

Infuriated, Amare yelled, "Borko, listen, it is your choice. It is your choice whether to help this little girl have some hope or not. If you want to save her go for it, if not go for it. Just know what she has been through, know everything that you and I have had to deal with and take away 14 years of our lives."

Looking at him with all the rage built inside of me string at him in his eyes, "Amare, shut the hell up! Do you know how dangerous it is to play any favoritism within the system? Favoritism risks the one thread of order that we have of stability in this group. We don't have much over them except for this plan we hatched together. We cannot risk that you idiot. Go prepare the damn orb, and do your job in the system. You put me in charge of making the system of choosing people to go to the destination blind. We cannot remove the blindfold. No matter what and no matter for whom. Got it?"

Without even responding, he left me to go prepare the orb, at this point the sun had been down for 1 hour and 30 minutes. It was time for night two of operation skyward. Tonight I had never been more nervous of our plan falling apart. If that were to happen, we would all die.

About fifteen minutes later, the drawing was to happen. Tonight it was only going to be one farmer and child because we needed to fly a soldier in. It came time to draw the child who was going to go to the destination. As I reached into the helmet we picked names out of, I got the sheet of paper that had the name of the child Amare told me to pick. I know some other refugees heard Amare telling me earlier to pick her intentionally. They were murmuring about how the system was already broken because of that. If I were to call her name the refugees would riot. If I don't the system is already broken. Amare was looking over my shoulder, so I could not call a name that wasn't on the paper. I stood terrified, not knowing what to do. Do I sacrifice the order that is ever so fragile already? Do I call a different name and start a feud between Amare and I for the sake of the systems legitimacy? I called the name of the child and the refugees were irate.

To calm them down I passed the ticket around to show every single refugee as Amare loaded up the refugees that were called. I knew that Amare didn't tamper with the system because the helmet was on my person at all times. This was a coincidence of much danger. The fear of God was stricken in me at that moment.

After I had shown every refugee the piece of paper, it would have been pointless to travel. I hope Amare enjoyed this. Due to his outburst earlier, he risked the small amount of stability we had in this unlikely case. The day of travel was wasted because of him.

I loaded up the servicewoman, the child, and the farmer we had called. They were excited to go to the destination and to see the others that had left the night before. As we floated towards the destination the little girl said something that made me feel this whole operation was worth it, "Thank you Commander Mugabe."

Shocked and with a tears in my eyes I saluted and responded, "You're welcome, what is your name"

"My name in Vakh, it means fear from the language where my ancestors came from, Zakaryan Armenia." Vakh responded.

"How do you know exactly where you are from?" Amare asked Vakh relatively uneasy about the answer that was to come.

She responded as if the answer were obvious, "We kept a record for the past 100 years of my family and where they came from. "

"You know that records of the outside world are strictly forbidden by the monarch, right?" I continued, "That is considered treason." She didn't respond or talk for the rest of the trip.

As we approached the destination, I went to check up on the refugees I dropped off earlier that night. I asked them how did their night go and how the fields were. Overall, they said that everything was all right and that they got 4 rows of grain planted today and will get more tomorrow. They then continued to show me the layout of the garden. They laid it our proportional to what humans need in their diets. Half of the garden was going to be left as resting soil, the other half was to be: 40% grain, 30% vegetables of several varieties, and 20% was to be vine fruits, and 10% was going to be based on postharvest loss. It seemed logical and we could change it at time went on and as the occasion called for.

"You didn't bring my sister!" The girl from the other night said. She continued, "Is she still alive!?"

I responded carefully, "When I left no one else had died." She wanted to tell me her name, but if she did I would then end up picking favorites and that almost threw the group out of order earlier. In all of the excitement of our most recent successes, I forgot that tensions were still incredibly high and that people are looking out for themselves to survive more so than the group. Borko understood that and he was right not to play favorites. Still though, does our system have to be so ridged? Can it make a single exception to the rule later on when it is better established? I need to remember that while Borko is my friend, he is the leader of that group. I put him in that position myself. While he is ridged and almost heartless, he is doing what is best for the group. In a time of heavy tensions, order comes before favoritism. I need to remember that. If I don't, my concerns for the people of the group will get us all killed. No matter our success, I have to remember that we are all at each other's throats.

I came in for a landing to the forest where I last left the group and instead of the lights guiding me to the group's location, I was guided by screams.

Zu Lieben came up to me after Amare had left, while I was preparing our plan for catching up due to the lost night of travel, and said, "You know, I was honestly surprised that you let me in your group."

"Why? You provided a ton of ODM gas, blades, and mechanics. Also your group was heavily covered as far as food went. It would've been stupid for me not to." I continued looking down at the map while she continued on.

"Stop acting so cold! You know it's okay to show me some emotion besides robot right? You can do things out of your heart you know!" She yelled at me.

"Doing things out of my heart doesn't serve the purpose I am here for," I continued relatively annoyed, "I am here to keep a systemic order. If I fail even once, all of us could possibly die. Now if you don't leave me alone and go do your damn guard duty I will personally kick you out of this group for disturbing the order. It's your fault we are here and not walking. Trying to convince Amare to convince me to corrupt the system. You'll get us all fucking killed Zu Lieben." As she was opening her mouth to probably say some snarky comment about how heartless I am we heard a scream coming from behind us. As she and I went to the area in which it came from we found somebody was murdered via knifing. This night has been the longest ever since we first set out. As dominos, the group went into more and more panic until it was sheer chaos. The screamed things like, "I bet it was one of those slimy guards." And, "We outta kill whoever did this." These statements shook the very threads of order we had. As all of this was being screamed my soldiers looked to me to maintain order.

I told my soldiers to maintain order in the calmest way possible and to guide the refugees to sleep, after that we would wake the individuals who were near that person one by one and collect data as to what they saw/heard/etc. They were then to report it to me and after that when Amare came back He, Zu Lieben and I were to figure out who it was, why they did it, and most importantly, what to do with them. We had to have so judicial system or else murder would only continue. Who would've thought that in this time where we have to fight off man-eating giants, our first casualty in days would be from a human?

As this was happening, we saw Amare come in for a landing. I explained what had happened. Expecting him to freak out in an emotional rampage he simply asked, "Well Commander, what is the plan."

I explained it to him and he went to do his own investigation.

_Day Six: I came in from my last journey to the destination to find that it was a success. After I unintentionally caused a small riot yesterday with the events leading up to the name drawing. This stopped the group from moving last night; reasonably Borko had some animosity towards me. When I came back I heard screams from in the air, when I came down we had a murder on our hands. After investigations during the day, we boiled it down to one person. He admitted to the crime. As the sun was falling, Borko, Zu Lieben, and I had to decide how to punish him._

Borko and Amare looked at the murderer with glares that resembled an animal cornering a predator that had killed one of their young. They no longer saw him as human, but as an animal that had misbehaved drastically and that needed to be put down. The murderer was a man by the name of Reichtum.

At this point he was looking in Amare's eyes and said, "You want to kill me, don't you? Well go for it. I don't know how I got put in this shithole of an operation anyway. Why should I trust someone like you to carry me, or any other people in this group for that matter? You are nothing but a stupid animal that is herding us all to our deaths. Go ahead kill me, it shows that you don't have humanity. You and your people are just animals.

Have you ever wondered why there are so many people who aren't white in this group? Have you ever wondered why there aren't any conservatives in this group? It's because the king wanted to get rid of all of them to purify the human race. Your people were hindering the Monarch's efforts to retain order in the kingdom. What, with your fancy inventions and ideas that will 'change the world' well the world doesn't need changing. You know kid; I was with the group that killed your parents that day two years ago. If I had a gun I would kill you too. I don't know how someone as stupid and incompetent as yourself could lead this group, but…." Not even a second after that I saw Amare slap him across the face and gag his mouth. He then proceeded to kick him in the ribs. Borko held Amare back and after a few minutes Amare calmed down. Borko looked to me and said, "Well Zu Lieben, we know Amare's choice fate for this man, and I am going to vote for his quick and painless death, what is your choice for him?"

Looking down, I had no idea what to say. Do I play God and condem him to his fate? He deserves it, but who are we to kill another human? Then again, who is he to kill another human? I looked Borko in his big hazel eyes and with a shake in my voice I said, "A painless death."

As I finished saying that, Borko unsheathed a blade, looked the now balling Riechtum in the face, and said, "You don't have any tough guy bullshit to say now do you?" Borko cleanly sliced off this mans head. I will never forget the face that I saw on that severed head. His face was locked in fear, the most recent tears streaming down his face. I never want to experience this again. It was too much for anyone with a drop of humanity to handle.

Borko wiped the blood off of his hands and calmly said, "Ready to travel tonight? We have to travel two miles into the forest if we want to make it to our destination with enough food to last us until the harvest. Amare said that everything was going well at the destination."

Still mortified, I simply said, "Okay, Amare will you be able to fly tonight?"

"Yeah I should be fine. Thanks Borko for stopping me."

"It's no problem. You have got to get your emotions in check though. You can't freak out every time some act of inhumanity happens though. It will only stir things up in the group of refugees and all of the lives that we have lost over the course of this week will be in vain. Got it?"

"Got it." Amare replied with his head down in the same way a child is scolded by his parents. A mixture of both being humbled, and saddened.

"Well guys, get to your stations, we have a long night ahead of us." Borko commanded.

Amare headed to his balloon, Borko went to announce to the refugees that it was time for the drawing, and I headed to soldiers and told them the plan. After about 20 minutes of briefing my soldiers on the plan for the night, it was time for the drawing for who goes to the destination. Tonight's isn't nearly as important as last night's. After the 3 people were called, one mechanic, one farmer, and a child, Amare set off in the orb and we were ready to get walking. I was at the front with Borko tonight; we were to stop any titan that may be roaming at night.

As it was still and quiet I looked at Borko and said, "Borko, do you think that we are being a little too harsh with how you're treating the refugees? They are humans you know. You don't have to be so despotic with some of them. They aren't all like Riechtum was, most of them just want to live and try to exist normally. Do you not see that?"

"Commander Zu Lieben, what is our primary goal here? Is it to comfort these people or is it to try to get as many of them to the destination as safely as possible? We need to not worry about their emotions right now. We need to keep order the best way we can. The psychology behind the system Amare and I put into place, before you got here and almost fucked everything up, is keep the order by proving to them that our leadership, and co-operation with it, is the best way to survive this suicide mission, and second, it keeps their fledgling hopes up that they can go to the destination via random and equal drawing. From this we are able to keep order and keep going on until we reach our destination, and most importantly we can start our own self-sufficient society based on equality no matter what color, political views, and so on so forth.

To get to our new and better society, especially with the situation in front of us, we must have order be the first priority. When we prioritize order within this group, we will stop arbitration from taking over. Disorder in a time of crisis is more destructive than any other naked giant will ever be. That is why I am so strict and systemic with how I treat people in this group, got it?"

Dumbfounded, I responded, "I understand."

In the far distance we saw a group of four very tall men, carrying torches and they seemed to be wearing cloaks. Borko and I ran towards them and as we got closer to them, they began to run. As we neared a few trees that we saw over a hill, we saw a yellow strike of lightning come out of the clear, moonlit sky. We then heard footsteps crashing closer and closer until we saw the largest titan of our careers. I looked at Borko, he kept that calm face he always had, and he simply said, "Go back and warn the group, Amare warned me about guys like him. I'll take him down."

As he said that his eyes started to glow and he began his attack on the titan.

When the group of people I took in the orb got off and settled into their new home, I checked on the garden and the farmers were glad to tell me of the progress they had made and how excited they were to get this farm really growing, they firmly believed that with what they were going to plant could probably feed 650 people after the estimated postharvest loss. They told me they wanted to dedicate 10% of the space to medical herbs and for research on how to get bigger crops. I told them that they should probably go 6% for now and wait until we have relative food security. They agreed.

The reports on the first serviceman being in charge there were minimal. The children said that he is a good teacher and that he plays with them. The farmers said he is a good worker and that because of his help around they should have the fields planted in three to four days. After I got my reports, I waved goodbye and headed out to find my group.

As I was floating, I couldn't help but thing of the cloaked man I saw last night. I thought of his book. Though I had yet to read it, I saw a crest on it. What terrified me was that because of that, he may not be alone. Is there a group of humans that can change into titans? If there are I am not sure how we, as a fledgling unit of people, could fend them off. Also, if they are united, what is their motive? These thoughts were terrifying. Could we be going against a whole group of armored and colossal titans?

As these thoughts came to a close I continued to float towards the group for about an hour more until in the distance I saw a yellow flash of lightning strike the ground around a small village. As I drew closer I saw a human trying to kill the titan. I then saw the group almost paused about a mile back. The moon was falling and both the titan and the man were putting up one hell of a fight. I then felt something snap as I did the first time, I began my orbs dissention and set it to hover, I then jumped out of the basket..

As I was fighting this beast I looked at him, he was not like the other titans. The other titans were fat, this one was muscular, almost as if it had been trained to fight, he was putting up a better fight than the rest of the titans do, he didn't grab or try to eat me as the others did, he just tried to catch the ODM wires to sling me. This was no titan; this was a human in a titan vessel.

After a while of fighting I noticed I was running low on gas. If I run out he will kill me for sure. As a clinched onto his face, time began to slowdown again. As if seconds had become 10 times longer, as if his motions had slowed down and become a lot more predictable, and as if I was able to think much clearer than before.

I looked to the corner of my eye and I saw Amare. He was doing that thing again where he couldn't control himself. Even in my time time-lapsed vision he was moving as quickly as anyone would in my normal vision. I then saw the titan slowly fall down. I launched my hooks into the nape and I sliced it off. What I found coming out of the weak spot was one of the cloaked men. I then proceeded to kill him by one swing of my blades. His head rolled on the ground as I realized I was out of gas.

Amare looked at me and said, "They aren't alone are they."

"From the looks of it, they seem like a unit. We will know for sure once we break the seals of this book, and read what is inside." I responded.

Covered in blood we signaled the group to come forward. It was close but we settled into the next forest in time for dawn. We told the group that our reason for being covered in blood was that there were a few abnormals we had to deal with and that everything was going to be fine. We were both exhausted and we both went to sleep. Zu Lieben was in charge of setting things up. We decided that we were going to call it a re-grouping day because we caught up to our goal. Amare and I were going to break the seals to the books once we awoke tomorrow. When we did, we would uncover all of the secrets that this seemingly united group had to hide. We would find out their purpose and most importantly to our survival, how many there are.


End file.
